Gallery: Addressing four common nutrition myths

Aaron Amat, Fotolia.com03.14.2012

Myth: You have to drink eight cups of water per day

You hear it so often — that eight cups of water a day is necessary for everything from weight control to cleansing the body — that it seems it must be truth, but the reality is there is no good evidence to support this claim. In fact, this age-old myth is believed to have originally stemmed from a 1970s textbook that made the statement that the human body needs a bit more than two litres (8 cups) of fluid per day from all sources, including coffee, tea, milk, juice, pop and, yes, even alcohol. While we have sadly learned since then that alcohol is not good for hydration, we do know that virtually all fluids do hydrate us, including caffeinated drinks such as tea and coffee, so long as you are habituated to them. When it comes to weight, remember some drinks, such as pop and juice, contain quite a few calories, so sticking to water is usually best. Some individuals, including athletes, those at risk for kidney stones, and pregnant and breastfeeding women, might require extra fluids, but for everyone else, it's all about finding the right amount of fluids for you.

Aaron Amat
/ Fotolia.com

Myth: To lose weight, you need to eat a high-protein/ low-fat/low-carb diet

There is a tremendous amount of debate around the issue of which macronutrients (meaning protein, carbohydrates and fat) are most important for successful weight control, but the truth is we don’t have clear evidence that any one of these diets is substantially better than the others. We do know that protein is important for satiety (fullness), as well as for building and maintaining lean muscle tissue, so it seems to make sense to emphasize protein during periods of weight loss, but recent data from the "Pounds Lost Study," published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, reconfirmed that it’s actually the number of calories we eat (a measure of energy in food, derived from the combination of protein, carbohydrates and fats) that best predicts chances of losing weight. Ultimately, the key to any change is that it fits your lifestyle, so that you can stick to it over the long run.

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/ canada.com

Misunderstanding: You need to stop eating at a certain time of night to lose weight

You'll hear it over and over again in popular diet books: To successfully lose weight, you need to stop eating at 7 p.m. Or is it 8 p.m.? To date, we have little evidence that says our bodies process calories differently at night. What is important, however, is avoiding unnecessary calories at any time of day, and nighttime can be a particularly dangerous time. If an evening snack is part of your caloric needs for the day — use your weight as a guide for this — then go ahead and enjoy it.

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Misunderstanding: Antioxidants are vital to our health

I'll be the first to admit it: I talk about antioxidants on a regular basis. But the truth is we have remarkably little evidence that antioxidants from supplements, and even from food, have direct effects on health. A mounting body of evidence, in fact, suggests that antioxidant supplements, which include vitamins A, C and E, as well as beta-carotene and selenium, can do us harm, especially when taken at high doses. We also don’t have a great deal of evidence that directly connects dietary antioxidants with health or disease in humans. For example, while anthocyanins are known as the active compounds in purple, blue and deep-red fruits and vegetables such as blueberries, raspberries and cranberries, researchers have yet to prove they actually survive the digestive process intact. Yet despite the dearth of good-quality evidence, many of us still talk about antioxidants as key to our health. Why? Perhaps because, while we know fruits and vegetables are good for us, research has yet to be able to pinpoint the precise reason why — a point that speaks to the notion that real food is much more than the sum of its parts.